


the cost of war

by notquiteaghost



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and you know what thats valid, kinda sorta ish, sometimes instead of actually going to therapy, you just have a lot of very heavy conversations with your husband
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: a true patriot knows the cost of war. pays for it himself.Every new batch of shinies gets younger, somehow.Not— Well, yes, actually younger. They’re sending them out ateightnow, like that’s anything but insane. (Like sending them out attenwasn’t insane, never mind how convinced the Kaminoans are of the success of their training, never mind how the casualty rates of shinies are disproportionately high because dammit but Rex is right and nothing ever beats out actual experience—)But younger somehow else, too. Around the eyes, the set of their jaw, how they still suppress the smallest flinch at sudden noises. Cody looks at them and thinks of Domino squad, of Tano, of every civvie kid scrambling to cover from aerial strikes or running through market stalls laughing or sending the 212th earnest, excited holo messages he’s sure Obi-Wan isn’t actually supposed to show them.





	the cost of war

**Author's Note:**

> i just have a lot of feelings about these two idiots learning to care for each other. also, as we know, Oh My God Someone Get The GAR A Fucking Therapist
> 
> title/epigraph is from '[sleeping](http://ohandreagibson.tumblr.com/sleeping)' by andrea gibson

> _a true patriot knows the cost of war_  
>  _pays for it himself_

 

Every new batch of shinies gets younger, somehow.

Not— Well, yes, actually younger. They’re sending them out at _eight_ now, like that’s anything but insane. (Like sending them out at _ten_ wasn’t insane, never mind how convinced the Kaminoans are of the success of their training, never mind how the casualty rates of shinies are disproportionately high because dammit but Rex is right and nothing ever beats out actual experience—)

But younger somehow else, too. Around the eyes, the set of their jaw, how they still suppress the smallest flinch at sudden noises. Cody looks at them and thinks of Domino squad, of Tano, of every civvie kid scrambling to cover from aerial strikes or running through market stalls laughing or sending the 212th earnest, excited holo messages he’s sure Obi-Wan isn’t actually supposed to show them.

The shinies are _kids_ , dammit. They’ve never lost a batchmate. Never been reserves on a week-long siege and waded through dead _vode_ no one had time to bury to get to the enemy. Never run out of bandages just in time to watch a brother bleed out.

And they’re kids. They shouldn’t _have to_.

“Did I ever tell you,” Obi-Wan asks, the door to the observation deck clicking shut behind him as he moves to stand beside Cody, “about Melida/Daan?”

The Negotiator is on its way back to the Outer Rim, chasing up intelligence about a Seppie outpost. They’d only been on Coruscant a week, barely long enough to requisition everything they needed, the whole company’s supplies decimated after the fucking mess that was Geonosis. The whole _company_ decimated.

Cody shakes his head, watching another squad of shinies run the training sim and make enough mistakes to die a dozen times over.

“I was fourteen,” Obi-Wan says, quietly. He, too, is watching the shinies. “I’d been a padawan for under a year. We were sent to mediate a conflict, two factions who had been fighting for hundreds of years. But they didn’t want peace. All they knew was their war.”

In the training hall below, a shiny takes a blaster bolt to the chest, and is up again in seconds. The blasters in the sim are meant to stun - should have hit the kid harder than that. The instructors on Kamino always loved to complain about the clones’ increasing immunity to stun bolts, how if they cranked the strength up much higher it’d be lethal and, who knows, at the rate they were going maybe the clones would shake that off too.

“There was another group, a rebel cell who called themselves the Young,” Obi-Wan continues. “None of them were of age, but they were the only people who cared enough about peace to take a stand for it. They wanted the Jedi’s help.”

Obi-Wan lets out a long, heavy breath. Cody knows there’s more to this story than he’s letting on, knows his apprenticeship makes Tano’s look a barrel of laughs by comparison. But stars know Cody’s General isn’t forthcoming about his past, no matter how much Kabu mutters about therapy and karking Jedi and letting shit fester.

Cody’s not going to push.

“I was still a child myself - Gods, I was younger than half the Young.” Obi-Wan’s voice is heavy with old guilt. If he was telling this story to someone else, they’d probably need more than his tone of voice and the barest details. Cody knows all too well exactly what he means. “And I helped them train to fight a war.”

“With all due respect,” Cody says, “it wasn’t your fault. Other people make their own choices, sir, and you are not the only guilty man in the entire galaxy.”

“Even though I showed them how to plan the ambush that got them killed? Even though I helped them steal the ammunition they were shot with? Even though—“

“Yes!” Cody snaps, turning from the viewport to glare at Obi-Wan properly. “Of course it’s not your fault, you _di’kut_ , it’s not like you personally started the fucking war—“

Oh.

Oh, of _course_ this isn’t actually about Obi-Wan’s trauma at all, the _fucker_.

“I despise you,” Cody says, lightly. Obi-Wan just grins at him, and really, he should know better. The viewport is one-way, and one of these days Cody is going to use that relative privacy to his advantage.

To beat the ever-loving shit out of his commanding officer where their men can’t see, that is.

“But you see my point?”

Cody huffs. “Yeah, yeah, blaming myself isn’t helping anyone, you should know ‘cause you are a walking talking guilt complex, there are better things to focus my energy on. I know.”

That isn’t enough, Cody knows, Obi-Wan is still looking at him expectantly. So he turns his focus back to the training hall. The sim is just about over, and only three of the shinies are still standing. They’re going to pass the sim, still. The Kamino sims don’t care about casualties, as long as the objective is completed.

“The 212th’s casualty rates are the lowest in the GAR.”

“Fantastic!” Cody snaps, curling his hands into fists so he doesn’t break something. “I’m so glad only _one_ of those five kids will die before they turn ten, that makes me feel so much better.”

“Cody—“

“They’re _eight_ , Obi-Wan! They’re going to die before they hit double digits! They’re _kids_ and when I look at them all I can think is they’re too slow, too jumpy, not jumpy _enough_ and it’s going to _kill them_ , and then when I replace their squad I’ll fill out the same fucking form I use to requisition more deecees!”

He’s not shouting. The ‘steel separating them from the training hall might be opaque, but it’s not soundproof.

He is shaking, slightly. Gods, he wants to _hit_ something.

Obi-Wan isn’t Skywalker, who Cody knows from Rex would have gathered him in his arms before he’d got through his tirade’s first sentence. Obi-Wan knows him well enough to wait and make sure he isn’t actually going to hit something before stepping within range.

Cody’s gotten in the habit of walking ‘round without his chest and shoulder pieces, if he knows they won’t be seeing any combat. The stubborn, angry blaster wound at the top of his spine doesn’t care how comforting the weight of his armour is, or how healed it should be by now.

And this way, when Obi-Wan wraps an arm across the small of Cody’s back, he can feel the warmth of it on his skin. Can tilt his head to the side and have Obi-Wan press a kiss to his neck.

“You spend an awful lot of time lecturing me about my health,” Obi-Wan says, soft and fond, his lips still brushing Cody’s skin, “for someone who has spent just as little time talking to a professional.”

Cody lets out a breath, breathes in the scent of fancy Temple soap and oversteeped tea, lets out another. Tries to let the anger out with it. “I talk to you.”

“And I encourage that, but raising Anakin did not actually net me a qualification in therapy.”

Cody raises a hand and laces his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair, as much for himself as for the way Obi-Wan’s eyes flutter closed. “Isn’t the whole point of PTSD that you wait until the trauma’s over, then deal with it?”

Obi-Wan’s laugh has just the slightest hint of bitterness. He doesn’t say, _Yes, but you have to live through it first_. They’ve had this conversation enough times, they both know their lines.

“When the war’s over,” he says instead, “I’m retiring to the creche. We can spend all day playing push feather and trying to explain quantum physics to overly curious toddlers.”

Over Obi-Wan’s shoulder, Cody can see a new squad of shinies entering the training hall. They’re laughing about something, shoving at each other, pulling faces. None of them look a day over seven.

“Yeah,” Cody says, looking away. “Chasing after a dozen _jetii_ younglings will be so much less stressful, you have the best ideas.”

Obi-Wan makes an affronted noise, then starts what’s sure to be a very long and involved tangent about the controlled chaos of the creche, and how being a crechemaster is something you earn with a couple decades of the most exhausting field work, and the many ways that teaching baby _jetii_ to meditate and connect with the Force is rewarding and fulfilling.

Cody lets him talk. He doesn’t say anything about the likelihood they both live to retirement, or the Order ever claws back control of their own from the Senate, or the galaxy ever gives up its kids to the Jedi again. He doesn’t say anything at all.

Below, the shinies go through the sim with the ruthless efficiency of a squad who might make it through the next few engagements alive. Obi-Wan rambles about the many ways Initiates try to get out of writing essays, and Cody allows himself to close his eyes and imagine a world where the worst thing the kids in his care have to stress about is how well they know the wars of long, long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> i am [here](http://notquiteaghost.tumblr.com/ao3) on tumblr


End file.
